History
by thedinoknowsall
Summary: One-shot, G1. In the Lower Levels, things were tough. Energon was scarce, so were parts, and for many it was kill or be killed. Orion Pax wanted out. And out he got...


Author's Note: I only kinda know where this came from. Now, you've all heard of the All American Rejects 'Move Along?' Good. That's where this came from. Again, as with most of my fics, I have no idea how I connected this plot bunny with that song.

But apparently the bunnies bred in my music. I figured that out a while ago actually...

(And for any of you who are waiting for updates on either _Great Minds Think Alike_ or _Well, This is Different,_ I'm sorry, huge writers block on both. It suuuuuuucks, 'cause I really do want to update 'em.)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, and I defiantly don't own Transformers.

* * *

The sunlight of a new orn lit up the golden street. Tall futuristic also golden buildings shimmered in the rising star, their tall nearly impossible looking spires reached high into the heavens. Slowly robots (for this was Cybertron, a world populated by such beings) made their way onto the street to start a new day. These robots came in all shapes and sizes, colors from the most vibrant shades to the dullest.

An automatic door cycled open half way down the golden street. A small but sturdy mech slipped out. Well, small on the robots', or mechs as they preferred to be called, standards. He was still over fifteen feet tall by ours'.

The 'small' mech walked into the crowd of his fellow mechs. He wove with practiced ease through the throng reaching the street quickly. There he walked into one of the spaces set aside for just this purpose and transformed.

Parts flew across his body rearranging. His hands retracted into his arms, his head into his shoulders as plates moved to rearrange properly. Finally the shifting of parts ceased and in the place of the mech was a truck-like vehicle. The vehicle pulled out of the space (by itself) and merged with the traffic.

The vehicle wove in the traffic with the same grace as the mech. He made many turns and with each turn the traffic got thinner and thinner until finally the vehicle was alone. It still continued at it's leisurely pace.

Here the buildings got lower, flatter, but no less golden in color. Here, however, the golden was... Less perfect. Dirt and grime gathered in the corners, seeping into the 'perfection,' infecting it.

The mech's sensors told him about these infections, and he ignored these readings. It was nothing the mech hadn't seen before. Here in the lower levels, it was common.

At last the vehicle pulled up to a building that looked like all the others. Just another energon dock, just like all the others. As the vehicle entered a shuttle was descending from the sky full of fresh energon from the mines off planet.

With a heave of his vents, the mech transformed back to his primary mode. He slowly made his way into the building, where mechs of similar build to him, though most were taller, were unloading the shuttle.

"Orion! Hey, Orion Pax! You got your audials turned off? Pax! Over here!"

Mock huffing, Orion stopped and turned to glance over his shoulder at his friend. "Yes, Dion?"

"It's the Boss. He wants to see you." The blue and orange mech gestured over his shoulder at an office built into a wall. "I'd be careful, he sounded a bit mad. Not that I can tell, he always seems to be mad to me." The mech shrugged.

Orion sighed again. Wonderful. This day was great so far. "Thanks Dion. I'll go see him right away."

The other mech gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before going to help with the unloading. Orion watched him go. He admitted it, he was stalling. When Dion reached his fellow workers Orion finally turned towards the 'office'. The red and blue mech huffed again. It was more like a lean-to.

The worker mech slipped into the 'office' with grace, despite the unstable door, and stood at attention in front of the 'desk' (more like a few metal slabs roughly put together to look like a desk). Behind it, in an equally shoddily constructed chair, sat a dark grey mech reading a data pad.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, Orion Pax. You're here because of your work ethic." The mech hadn't looked up from his data pad. Good, because he didn't see Orion stiffen as his processor tried to figure out what he had done wrong.

"My... Work ethic, sir?" Oh slag, he couldn't lose this job. The economy was bad at the moment, he couldn't get another. An ex-dock worker with only the government required amount of education? No slagging way he was getting hired.

Orion needed a job too. He was saving up. He had never wanted to drop out just after the required amount of school, but his creators' were struggling and they needed him to get a job. Now that he had moved out, he could save up, get a higher education. The young bot had always been fascinated with history; maybe he could get a job as an archivist. Then he would get a much bigger salary, maybe he could even move out of the lower levels.

But that was all a dream unless he could just keep this job.

"Yes, your work ethic..." The mech signed his signature glyph at the bottom of the data pad finally and looked up to regard Orion with green dull optics. He webbed his fingers together and rested his chin on them.

Orion tensed. Here it came. He was going to get fired, and then what would he do? He could go back to his creators, he would just be a burden to them. But without this job, he could pay the rent, and he'd end up homeless. You did not want to end up homeless in the lower levels. Though the streets looked perfect in the daylight, during night they became a deathtrap full of criminals ready to slit your throat for the energon in your lines. What those mechs did to the homeless wasn't pretty.

But of course the higher ups didn't care. What was a few homeless mechs to their 'perfect society?'

But back to the point. "Hmmm..." Orion's boss hummed thoughtfully, though he was still scowling. And his mouth plates opened to say something. Here it comes... Orion internally winced. "... You're getting promoted."

... What? "Your work ethic is amazing. Much better than most of the other mechs here. You're going to be promoted to Supervisor for this dock, reporting directly to me. Starting tomorrow. Think you can handle it, Orion?" The mech still looked deadly serious, but Orion was jumping with joy inside. He nodded quickly. "Good. Here's a data pad telling what you're going to be doing in your new position, and the pay raise and such. And Orion?" The young mech looked up from the data pad expectingly. "Don't tell anyone about this yet." Orion nodded. "Alright, get to work, I expect you to get here early tomorrow."

"Yessir!"

The rest of the work day passed smoothly. Orion diligently stacked crates full of energon, moving them from one shuttle to the next or taking them to a storage warehouse connected to the dock. He, as ordered, didn't tell anyone, even Dion, about his promotion. And he drove home feeling happier than he had in ages.

But he couldn't go home just yet. It was that time of the deca-cycle again. To the marketplace to pick up supplies.

Orion transformed in one of the pre-determined spots near the square the marketplace was in and walked into the throng of mechs and femmes surrounding the stalls. With the same practiced ease he slipped among them. He ignored most of the venders, crying out about their goods. Spare parts over there, energon goodies over here, musical crystals straight from the Praxus gardens, fresh energon ("The best in the Lower Levels!" the vender had claimed), and so many more things were being shouted to the skies. Orion just continued to a stall he knew well. It was one of the only stalls to sell good, mid-grade energon at a decent price.

"Hey, Fastwire." The young bot greeted the vendor.

"Orion! Old buddy! Whatcha here for? Just got some nice carbonized thrusters in, they're good quality and cheap. No? What about these-"

"I'm just here for energon, Fastwire." Orion skillfully interrupted. Even if Fastwire sold the cheapest decent quality energon, he was still a merchant, and merchants will try to sell their wares.

"Of course, of course. Are you sure about those thrusters?"

"Yes, I'm sure Fastwire." The merchant handed over the energon, and Orion handed over the credits. The young bot subspaced the energon, said goodbye to the merchant, and continued on his way.

The market place slowly emptied out as Orion continued to go to his usual stalls, greeted the merchants he knew well. Finally, just as the star was starting to disappear beneath the towers, he was done with his shopping. Time to hurry home; it wasn't safe to be outside at night.

Orion's subspace was full so he was forced to carry a few of his purchases. Ugh, transforming was going to be awkward with these.

The young bot walked quickly past the venders packing up their stalls. Just as he was about to reach the transforming areas, an arm shot out and grabbed his shoulder. One of his packages tumbled out of his arms.

"Sorry about that kid." a mech much taller than him grunted.

"It's okay." Orion smiled back up to him. The kind smile faltered slightly when he spotted the purple sigil smack dab in the center of the mech's chest. The sigil glared viciously back at him.

A Decepticon. They were revered among much of the lower levels. The Decepticons spoke of bringing the corrupt High Council down, and bringing glory and the luxury that the hard working lower level mechs deserved to them. By revolting.

The mech was glancing over his frame now. The observant staring was starting to unnerve him. "... You work at the docks?"

Orion's optics shifted nervously around his surroundings. The sun was sinking further down. "Yeah, yeah, I am. Look, I'm sorry, but I have to be getting home. I'm exhausted, it's been a long day."

"Of course. Be seeing you." The Decepticon left with a friendly pat on Orion's shoulder that had enough strength to nearly send him to the ground.

"Yeah, be seeing you..." Orion walked off, carefully shuffling his purchases, oblivious to the red optics boring into his back.

Some awkward transforming ensued as Orion tried to transform around his purchases so they ended up inside. He had to do this quickly, the sun was almost completely hidden by the towers.

The young bot arrived back at his apartment quickly enough. He hastily transformed near his building dropping his purchases in the process.

"Slag it." Orion muttered, trying to stuff the packages back into his arms. A sliver hand shot out to help him. Glancing up, Orion murmured, "Hey, Dion."

"Hey, Orion!" Dion cheerfully greeted back, taking a few packages into his arms. "Hey, can I crash at your place tonight, I can't get back to mine before dark..."

"Sure," Orion said as he started walking over to his building. "But what were you doing that got you out so late?"

"Oh, heh." Dion avoided his friend's optics. "Just... Flirtin' with Ariel." Dion shrugged.

"Oh, Dion, you know she's not interested in a relationship right now." Orion stated matter of factly as he put in his access code.

"How'd you know that?" Dion asked following his friend into the apartment.

"She told me. Being friends with femmes Dion, you should try it some time."

"Bah!" The orange and blue bot just shrugged the comment off.

The two friends unloaded all the packages into the storage areas in the apartment, chatting and bickering as friends are apt to do. They ended up on the couch in front of Orion's vid screen, talking about their days, after work.

After Dion's lengthy story about his failure flirting with Ariel, Orion just quickly went through his time at the market place and his encounter with the Decepticon.

"Wait, you actually met one? Oh, no way, Orion! What was he like?"

Orion just shrugged. "He was like... Any other mech. He wasn't anything special, besides a sigil on his chest."

"Awww, c'mon Orion! Primus, imagine what it would be like to be one of them! Getting ready to overthrow the higher ups, they're going ta be_ heroes!_ Don't you want to experience that?"

"No, I don't. I'm not a fighter, Dion, you know that. History, the Archives, that's what I want to do, that's where I want to be."

"You won't be able to get there, Orion! They won't let you! They want to keep all of us down here, working for them, gettin' poorer and poorer while they're up there sipping their high grade!"

"I'm not talking about going to live in the Towers, Dion! I'm saying maybe moving to a different neighborhood where it isn't so dangerous! I don't want to live in the Towers! I don't want to live there, and you shouldn't either! I don't want to live in that ridiculous luxury, because it blinds you! It blinds you to the suffering of others and I don't want to be blinded from everything but the next time I get a new paint job or an expensive alt mode!"

"The Decepticons won't be blinded! They've lived this life, they know the hardships, they won't let it happen again!"

_"How do you know, Dion?_ They are just mechs like you or me. Stupid, naive, fallible mechs. And history has told us again and again that no one is perfect. No one is infallible."

"History also tells us that all empires must fall! This is the time for the Autobots to fall!"

"Fine, fine, whatever. Let's just agree to disagree... But are you thinking of joining them?" Orion glanced at his friend from the corner of his optic. Somewhere along the corse of their argument they had both stood up to better yell their points.

"Yes." Dion said shortly.

Orion sighed. "Alright. 'Night, Dion, I'm off to recharge. You going to be okay on the couch?"

"Yeah. 'Night, Paxie." Orion smiled at his hated nickname, and went into his room.

* * *

The next few orns passed smoothly. Orion slipped easily into his new supervisor role, and the other mechs that now worked under him respected him greatly. Quite soon, their dock was one of the best stocked in all of the Iacon lower levels, and their warehouses were some of the safest.

That was probably the reason _he_ came.

His glossa split golden lies as easily as Seekers flew. And Orion believed them, he ate each one of those golden lies without batting an optic. After all, this was Megatron, he was the Leader of the Decepticons. And even if Orion didn't want the glory the Decepticons offered, he still respected them. What Dion said was true: all empires had to fall at one point. Now might be the time for the Autobots to fall.

He claimed he was looking for a place to store his supplies, and he heard this dock was safe. Orion believed him, Pit, he took him on a slagging tour.

And then they attacked.

Orion didn't remember much after that, besides the pain. There was a vague image of Dion letting out an angry roar and charging at the mechs that had come flying in, guns blazing. He was mowed down with the rest of them. His friend just fell, precious energon flowing freely from his wounds.

These mechs that had just killed his best friend and probably him as well, they just laughed. Evil, sadistic laughs that chilled Orion's fading spark. They were Decepticons, they were supposed to bring the lower levels freedom. And here they were. Killing their own. Mechs that were considering joining them.

Like Dion.

That orn, the Decepticons made a huge mistake. They not only started a war that would kill most of Cybertron's population, but the planet itself, they made a lasting enemy. An enemy that would stand up and lead the Autobots in those tough times.

That orn, they may of killed Dion and Orion Pax. But they made Optimus Prime.

* * *

I've always thought after seeing the episode in G1 that goes over Optimus' past ('War Dawn'?) that he really couldn't have been that oblivious to the uprising. I mean, we all know that the Cybertronian government was corrupt and was basically using the miners and other lower classes as slaves. And I'm pretty sure that dock workers count as that lower class. But call it AU if you really want to.

And I will admit, this plot bunny has been bugging me for a looooong time. It turned out to be a looooong one-shot, too.

Reviews are amazing and will be treasured until the end of time.


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